1962 United States Senate election in Alabama

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1962 United States Senate election in Alabama
Flag of Alabama.svg
  1956 November 6, 1962 1968  
  Listerhill (1) (retouched) (cropped).jpg James D. Martin.jpg
Nominee J. Lister Hill James D. Martin
Party Democratic Republican
Popular vote201,937195,134
Percentage50.86%49.14%

1962 United States Senate election in Alabama results map by county.svg
County results
Hill:      50–60%     60–70%     70–80%     80–90%
Martin:      50–60%     60–70%     70–80%

U.S. senator before election

J. Lister Hill
Democratic

Elected U.S. Senator

J. Lister Hill
Democratic

The 1962 United States Senate election in Alabama was held on November 6, 1962 to elect one of Alabama's members to the United States Senate. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator J. Lister Hill won re-election to his fifth, and last, full term.

Contents

Democratic primary

Candidates

Results

Alabama Democratic senatorial primary, 1962 [1]
CandidateVotesPercentage
J. Lister Hill 363,61373.7%
Donald Gunter Hallmark72,85514.8%
John G. Crommelin 56,82211.5%
Totals493,290100.00%

Republican primary

Candidates

Results

James D. Martin ran unopposed in the Republican Primary.

General election

Candidates

Campaign

In 1962, Hill, a pro-labor New Deal liberal, sought his last term in office but faced an unusually strong Republican opponent in James D. Martin, a petroleum products distributor from Gadsden. Like Hill, Martin supported the Tennessee Valley Authority, a New Deal project begun in 1933. Martin noted that the original sponsor of the inter-state development agency was a Republican U.S. senator, George W. Norris of Nebraska. Martin proposed in the campaign that the TVA headquarters be relocated from Knoxville, Tennessee, to its original point of development, Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Hill had worked to fund other public works projects too, including the deepening of the Mobile Ship Channel, the building of the Gainesville Lock and Dam in Sumter County, and the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, an ultimately successful strategy to link the Tennessee River with the Gulf of Mexico. In the campaign against Martin, Hill said, "If Alabama is to continue the progress and development she has achieved, she cannot do so by deserting the great Democratic Party of Franklin Roosevelt." [2]

Senator Hill pledged to seek renewed funding for the Redstone Arsenal and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and accused Eisenhower of having neglected the space program while the Soviet Union was placing Sputnik into the atmosphere. Strongly endorsed by organized labor, Hill accused the GOP of exploiting the South to enrich the North and the East and attacked the legacy of former President Herbert C. Hoover and the earlier "evils" of Reconstruction. Hill predicted that Alabama voters would bury the Republicans "under an avalanche." [3]

The 1962 mid-term elections were overshadowed by the Cuban Missile Crisis. Martin joined Hill in endorsing the quarantine of Cuba but insisted that the problem was an outgrowth of the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. Hill said that Soviet premier, Nikita S. Khrushchev, had "chickened out" because "the one thing the communists respect is strength." [4] The New York Times speculated that the blockade ordered by Kennedy may have spared Hill from defeat. [5]

Despite the postwar bipartisan consensus for foreign aid, Martin hammered away at Hill's backing for such programs. He decried subsidies to foreign manufacturers and workers at the expense of Alabama's then large force of textile workers: "These foreign giveaways have cost taxpayers billions of dollars and turned many areas of Alabama into distressed areas." Martin also condemned aid to communist countries and the impact of the United Nations on national policy. He questioned Hill's congressional seniority as of little use when troops were dispatched in the fall of 1962 to compel the desegregation of the University of Mississippi. [6]

The Hill-Martin race drew considerable national attention. The liberal columnist Drew Pearson wrote from Decatur, Alabama, that "for the first time since Reconstruction, the two-party system, which political scientists talk about for the South, but never expect to materialize, may come to Alabama." [7] The New York Times viewed the Alabama race as the most vigorous off-year effort in modern southern history but predicted a Hill victory on the basis that Martin had failed to gauge "bread-and-butter" issues and was perceived by many as an "ultraconservative." [8]

Results

1962 United States Senate election in Alabama [9]
PartyCandidateVotes%
Democratic J. Lister Hill (incumbent) 201,937 50.86
Republican James D. Martin 195,13449.14
Independent Write-in candidates8 [a] 0.00
Invalid or blank votes
Total votes397,079 100.00
Turnout  
Democratic hold

Results by county

1962 United States Senate election in Alabama by county [10]
CountyJoseph Lister Hill
Democratic
James Douglas Martin
Republican
MarginTotal votes cast
# %# %# %
Autauga 65335.32%1,19664.68%-543-29.37%1,849
Baldwin 2,50237.04%4,25362.96%-1,751-25.92%6,755
Barbour 1,08844.39%1,36355.61%-275-11.22%2,451
Bibb 1,03849.76%1,04850.24%-10-0.48%2,086
Blount 1,96153.42%1,71046.58%2516.84%3,671
Bullock 87654.48%73245.52%1448.96%1,608
Butler 1,29143.67%1,66556.33%-374-12.65%2,956
Calhoun 5,27060.60%3,42639.40%1,84421.21%8,696
Chambers 2,28568.83%1,03531.17%1,25037.65%3,320
Cherokee 1,57082.46%33417.54%1,23664.92%1,904
Chilton 2,39549.33%2,46050.67%-65-1.34%4,855
Choctaw 41328.21%1,05171.79%-638-43.58%1,464
Clarke 90234.56%1,70865.44%-806-30.88%2,610
Clay 1,07159.20%73840.80%33318.41%1,809
Cleburne 70264.23%39135.77%31128.45%1,093
Coffee 2,54556.42%1,96643.58%57912.84%4,511
Colbert 4,85971.09%1,97628.91%2,88342.18%6,835
Conecuh 1,22642.31%1,67257.69%-446-15.39%2,898
Coosa 68652.49%62147.51%654.97%1,307
Covington 2,17543.35%2,84256.65%-667-13.29%5,017
Crenshaw 1,27662.83%75537.17%52125.65%2,031
Cullman 5,07854.82%4,18545.18%8939.64%9,263
Dale 1,62247.04%1,82652.96%-204-5.92%3,448
Dallas 1,53935.57%2,78864.43%-1,249-28.87%4,327
DeKalb 5,44054.66%4,51245.34%9289.32%9,952
Elmore 1,69340.44%2,49359.56%-800-19.11%4,186
Escambia 1,82240.46%2,68159.54%-859-19.08%4,503
Etowah 8,54857.14%6,41342.86%2,13514.27%14,961
Fayette 1,28155.33%1,03444.67%24710.67%2,315
Franklin 3,05453.78%2,62546.22%4297.55%5,679
Geneva 1,41547.07%1,59152.93%-176-5.85%3,006
Greene 67759.91%45340.09%22419.82%1,130
Hale 89953.77%77346.23%1267.54%1,672
Henry 91048.05%98451.95%-74-3.91%1,894
Houston 1,72229.64%4,08770.36%-2,365-40.71%5,809
Jackson 2,99679.18%78820.82%2,20858.35%3,784
Jefferson 34,69142.41%47,10257.59%-12,411-15.17%81,793
Lamar 1,10466.15%56533.85%53932.29%1,669
Lauderdale 5,85670.23%2,48229.77%3,37440.47%8,338
Lawrence 2,02174.91%67725.09%1,34449.81%2,698
Lee 1,84356.43%1,42343.57%42012.86%3,266
Limestone 2,52278.37%69621.63%1,82656.74%3,218
Lowndes 34033.90%66366.10%-323-32.20%1,003
Macon 1,88875.01%62924.99%1,25950.02%2,517
Madison 7,88067.63%3,77232.37%4,10835.26%11,652
Marengo 63328.18%1,61371.82%-980-43.63%2,246
Marion 1,86353.12%1,64446.88%2196.24%3,507
Marshall 3,57362.94%2,10437.06%1,46925.88%5,677
Mobile 17,06747.95%18,52852.05%-1,461-4.10%35,595
Monroe 1,37051.02%1,31548.98%552.05%2,685
Montgomery 7,87342.03%10,85957.97%-2,986-15.94%18,732
Morgan 6,12568.56%2,80931.44%3,31637.12%8,934
Perry 60040.03%89959.97%-299-19.95%1,499
Pickens 82139.68%1,24860.32%-427-20.64%2,069
Pike 1,22944.55%1,53055.45%-301-10.91%2,759
Randolph 1,55662.72%92537.28%63125.43%2,481
Russell 82151.99%75848.01%633.99%1,579
Shelby 2,11648.04%2,28951.96%-173-3.93%4,405
St. Clair 2,41856.89%1,83243.11%58613.79%4,250
Sumter 45835.02%85064.98%-392-29.97%1,308
Talladega 3,64953.90%3,12146.10%5287.80%6,770
Tallapoosa 1,81054.44%1,51545.56%2958.87%3,325
Tuscaloosa 5,57357.79%4,07142.21%1,50215.57%9,644
Walker 5,59757.10%4,20542.90%1,39214.20%9,802
Washington 64433.59%1,27366.41%-629-32.81%1,917
Wilcox 46738.69%74061.31%-273-22.62%1,207
Winston 2,04942.07%2,82257.93%-773-15.87%4,871
Total201,93750.86%195,13449.14%6,8031.71%397,071

See also

Notes

  1. These write-in votes were not listed by county

References

  1. alabama.gov |title=Alabama Official and Statistical Register, 1963 |format=PDF
  2. "James Douglas Martin and the Alabama Republican Resurgence," p. 55
  3. The Mobile Register , October 2, 25, and 27, 1962; Walter Dean Burnham, "The Alabama Senatorial Election of 1962: Return of Inter-Party Competition," Journal of Politics, 26 (November 1964), p. 811
  4. Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report, October 12, 1962, p. 1832; Mobile Register, October 24, 1962; The Huntsville Times October 26 and November 2, 1962
  5. The New York Times, November 7, 1962, p. 44
  6. Mobile Register, October 26, 30, and November 1, 1962; Alexander P. Lamis, The Two-Party South (New York, 1984), p. 77.
  7. The Huntsville Times, October 24, 1962
  8. The New York Times, October 31, 1962, p. 14
  9. "1962 Senatorial General Election Results — Alabama". Dave Leip's U.S. Election Atlas.
  10. "AL US Senate, November 06, 1962". Our Campaigns.